


we, burning giraffes

by silkspectred



Series: the slowest runner [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (technically--there's a kid sleeping in the background), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Break Up, Co-Parenting, Kid Fic, M/M, No Sex, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Panic Attacks, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sharing Clothes, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 07:07:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16928727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkspectred/pseuds/silkspectred
Summary: There’s a grandfather clock in Steve’s room.[Story set about two years after the events of cacw]





	we, burning giraffes

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene set during _the slowest runner in all the world_. For reference, Sarah is about one year and a half here, so it's been a couple of years since the events of cacw. 
> 
> The fic has an unhappy ending tag only because it's set before the happy (sort of) ending that you can read in part 2 of the series, _oscillations_.
> 
> If you haven’t read the rest of the series it’s unlikely this fic will make much sense to you.
> 
> Thanks to tones and gem for beta.

There’s a grandfather clock in Steve’s room. Tony has no idea where he got it, but it appeared sometime after Sarah’s first birthday. It works; the hands and the pendulum move and all, but it doesn’t tell the right time.

Tony stares at it while he hovers in mid-air, tired as hell and with a half-damaged suit, outside of Steve’s floor-to-ceiling windows.

The glass hasn’t been put in night mode. Steve must have forgotten.

The first rays of sunshine allow Tony to see inside the room, and he finally decides that he’s stared at the clock long enough. He shifts his gaze to another part of the room, the one he’s been trying to avoid.

Steve is lying on his bed, on top of the covers, naked except for his underwear. He’s turned towards the window. In front of him, chest to back, there’s Sarah, fast asleep like her father, wearing only her diaper and one sock. The other one, Tony can see, is clutched in her tiny fist.

A super soldier. The daughter of a super soldier. Summer. A lethal combination for wearing PJs to bed.

Sarah moves to rub at her nose with the back of her hand. She doesn’t wake up, but Steve stirs and drags her closer to himself. His hand is so big that it covers all of Sarah’s front, chest to navel.

He looks like a lion, like this. The beard, the long hair, the way Steve’s curling up around Sarah to protect her…

A lion and his cub.

Steve presses his nose in Sarah’s hair, and Tony watches him and imagines the scent of his daughter making its way into his lungs and his heart.

He loves her so much. He loves them b—

Steve opens his eyes and sees him. He doesn’t react for a moment, careful to keep his movements fluid so as not to wake his daughter up. Careful, considerate. He’s such a good father.

Slowly, he gets up from the bed and walks to the window.

Tony gets plenty of daily practice in denying himself the things his biology wants, but he can’t stop himself from taking advantage of the helmet still hiding the direction of his gaze. He watches Steve, watches his muscles move while he walks, his broad shoulders, his beautiful abs, his strong thighs. The shape of his soft cock in his underwear. He remembers the scent of the hollow of Steve’s throat. He remembers Steve’s teeth sinking into his skin for the first time.

Steve taps at the keypad in the glass. Nothing seems to happen, but Steve draws to the side, making room for Tony.

He instructs the armor to move. He passes through the nanotech glass as though nothing was there.

The floor of Steve’s room—suddenly, something solid under Tony’s feet. He can feel the softness of the carpet even through the suit. He nods his head to the side and the helmet disappears.

Steve’s scent is so strong, so harsh and perfect, that Tony’s eyes sting for a moment. The acid pang at the back of the smell speaks of all their unhealed wounds, but the main overtones, oh. _Oh, Steve._

He lowers his gaze, tries not to raise suspicions by acting the good Omega act—demure and respectful in front of his Alpha; quiet, waiting for them to lead you. Overall, unaffected.

Steve doesn’t fall for it. He never has.

“You look like you got ran over by a truck,” he whispers, genuine concern coloring his voice.

“I feel like I did.”

Tony swallows.

He swallows again.

Then, an abyss opens up in the middle of his chest, and he feels sucked into it. All the air disappears from the room, from his lungs. He wants to explain, tell Steve what happened on the mission with Fury, but his lips don’t move.

There’s only the weight on his ribcage.

The emptiness.

The fear.

“Tony—”

Steve takes a step closer to him and Tony—

“Don’t touch me!” He says, louder than he should have. Sarah, thankfully, keeps sleeping.

“Alright,” Steve says, placating. “I’m not touching you. Promise.”

Steve gathers his thoughts with a sigh. Tony stares at his naked feet on the carpet. The tears blur his field of vision.

“Tony let’s… What do you say you take the armor off and tell me what happened? We can sit on the—”

“Agent Bell is in a coma. Fury has third-degree burns on his forearm. There was an explosion.”

“Shit—”

“There was… there were weapons, alien tech, but… not the Chitauri’s tech, it was—”

“What—” Confusion. Horror. In Steve’s voice. Then, Alpha instinct. Protection. “Tony, please, try to breathe. What kind of weapons—”

“Different. Different, from some other species, or world, or—” Big gulps of air but Tony feels like he’s drowning. “I feel him close, I feel him so close.”

“Who?”

“Him! Death! The… Whoever wants the stones!”

“Tony—”

“Someone’s been here! Since the Chitauri. Someone else! And they didn’t want us to notice, they… they hid their weapons! So they’d have an arsenal when they’re back… Who knows how many other bases… I… I need to do something—”

“You can’t do anything right now. Hey, hey, try to calm—”

“Don’t ask me to calm down!”

Sarah cries out.

An alarm blares in Tony’s head—his baby is crying and he’s too weak and emotional to take care of her. Stupid, useless Omega that he is.

Steve goes to Sarah, pushes the pacifier in her mouth and lulls her back to sleep. He whispers things in her ear, something that sounds like a song.

Tony closes his eyes and bites the inside of his cheek.

He doesn’t need Steve _asking_ him to do things.

“Tony… why don’t you take the—”

“They’re getting ready. And we aren’t. We need to. We need to get to work, _I_ need to get to work.”

He feels like he’s falling. Deep and deeper in the abyss. Nothing to stop him.

“And you will. But not right now. Right now you need to rest. Please.” Voice kind and warm. A request, again, and one to which Tony can’t reply.

“I have to go to the workshop—”

Steve sighs, heavy and sad.

“Tony.” The hard shadow in Steve’s tone. The angular set of his jaw. The merciless glint in his eyes. _Yes. Yes. Please._ “Take off your armor. Sit down and breathe. Now.”

Finally, an order. Something to grab on to, something that breaks Tony’s free fall into the hole of his own terror. His heartbeat slows down.

Tony thinks about the armor crawling away from him, and the armor crawls away from him. He sits down on the edge of Steve’s bed. He breathes.

“I hate doing that,” Steve murmurs, to himself more than to Tony, his voice vibrating as it goes back to normal. There’s still an echo of command in it, and Tony can feel it like the ridged skin of the scars in the middle of his chest. Like the burns on his fingertips. Like the shape of Steve’s bite embroidered on his shoulder.

Tony hates that he wanted it.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, taking a step away. “Do you want to shower? You can use the bathroom.” Tony watches Steve open a drawer, search in it. “I might even have some of your old cl—”

He holds a t-shirt in his hands but stops before taking it out of the drawer. It looks suspiciously like Tony’s Black Sabbath t-shirt, the one he’d lost a few years ago, before Sarah was born. Before Steve ran away and came back.

Steve bites his bottom lip. He drops the t-shirt back in the drawer. “No. Looks like I don’t. Sorry, you’ll have to make do with my stuff,” he says, putting a different t-shirt—one of Steve’s own—next to Tony with a clean pair of underwear.

Tony tries to detangle what he just saw Steve do from the last strands of his panic attack. But he—

Did Steve just lie to him?

(Again?)

Steve is wearing way too little clothing to be able to hide the deep flush that makes him bright pink from nose to stomach.

Tony feels a mean retort make its way up his throat. Rage builds up into him, burning his esophagus like bile.

But then.

He looks at Steve. He looks at Sarah, and then back at Steve.

Steve—he has his hands on his hips. His head is lowered. His eyes avoid Tony’s.

This loneliness, Tony understands it.

How small your world becomes, when you feel so utterly alone. It reduces itself to the littlest things. An old t-shirt that becomes a lifeline, and its presence fossilizes in your heart until the day you realize that you can’t live without it. It’s become part of your pain, giving it an unexpected shade of mundanity.

We think of ourselves as so much bigger than a mere t-shirt. But we never are.

“Thank you,” Tony says to Steve’s ankles. He drags his eyes away, then, and they fall on the grandfather clock. The pendulum’s movement, so regular and soft, is hypnotizing.

“What?”

“Why do you have that?” Tony asks pointing at the clock.

“I bought it.”

“It doesn’t even tell the right time.”

“That’s not why I keep it.”

“Then why do you keep it?”

“I like it.”

“It clashes with the rest of the room.”

“Why do you care?”

“Why can’t you just answer my question?”

“But why can’t you just leave it alone?”

“To be honest, it kinda bothers me. I could fix it if you—”

“The ticking helps me sleep.”

“I can’t hear any ticking.”

“ _You_ can’t.”

Tony scoffs. “Showoff.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth lifts up in a shy smile.

“I’m gonna—”

“Yeah.”

Under the shower, Tony can’t smell Steve anymore, and it’s good and bad at the same time. It’s as though he’s been held prisoner in a tiny box for a long while, and now he’s being released in a desert, big, yes, but too big. Too much.

A desert.

Sand, infection. Sweat, burned skin. Rhodey.

But, before. Yinsen. Death. The water—

Tony shuts the shower off, the suds still clinging to his calves.

He rests his forehead against the tiles and imagines himself taking a walk along the abandoned bond in his mind. He sees it, as most people say they do, like a beam of light, one side of which is lost in the darkness of his mind’s horizon.

It’s not very bright anymore. It’s wilted. Rusted, almost. Muted and still like a wounded animal.

It seems like a huge construction from the past. Abandoned centuries ago and left there to collect dust.

It used to be so different.

He wonders what would happen if he—

A knock against the door.

“Yes?”

Steve, opening the door just a bit. A sharp intake of air. An unplanned moment of hesitation. “The… the towels are in the sink cabinet,” he says, quiet.

“Thank you,” Tony replies, invisible from inside the shower stall.

“Sorry,” Steve says, and shuts the door softly.

Tony dries off and dresses and goes back into the bedroom.

Sarah is still asleep.

Steve stares at him, mouth open, eyes bright with something that he can’t soothe.

Tony sits down on the mattress and lowers himself to place a kiss on his daughter’s chubby knee.

The gesture sets Steve into motion. He begins to dress.

“You going somewhere?”

“She was good, you know. She ate the chicken and the potatoes and half an apple and—”

“Steve.”

“Then she pooped and I changed her and we took a bath and played in the tub and—”

“Steve.”

“She was good. She fell asleep, no fuss, and—”

“Steve. Please.”

Steve rakes a hand through his hair. Again. And again.

“You need to rest. And you need to be with her. I know you do. And I need to be… somewhere else. Uhm. In the gym, I mean.”

“I’d rather you stayed here,” Tony says in a whisper that only Steve can hear.

The words travel inside Steve like a current, and he straightens his back with the shock they give him.

Tony stretches out onto the bed, turning towards the middle of the mattress so he can look at Sarah while she sleeps. He leaves Steve to make his decision. He can’t do more than ask.

A long minute passes.

Steve sits on the bed as though he’s scared of it. He stares at the opposite corner of the room for a very long time, breathing a little too fast. He lies down, then, slow and careful, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Tony circles Sarah’s back with his hand. This close, he can feel all the ways his kid doesn’t smell like she should. He strokes her hair.

Cuddling Sarah does miracles for Tony’s mind—having her curled up between his arms transforms his anxiety into determination to keep her safe.

And Steve—Steve helps too. Just by being there.

Tony lifts his head to look at him, but Steve is looking at the grandfather clock.

“Why do you have that?” Tony asks again.

Steve doesn’t move before answering, quiet and ashamed. “The ticking reminds me of your heartbeat.”

He shifts to lie on his side, facing away from Tony.

Tony kisses Sarah’s forehead.

How small your world becomes, when you feel so utterly alone. It reduces itself to the littlest things.

The oscillations of a grandfather clock.

The tiny space between the _tick-tocks_ of someone else’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a song by (The) Slowest Runner (in all the World).
> 
> On [Tumblr](http://silkspectred.tumblr.com/post/180967382250/we-burning-giraffes-22k-m-steve-rogerstony)  
> On [Twitter](https://twitter.com/silkspectred/status/1071912787042025474)


End file.
